Guild Wars 2

I think you misunderstand what P2W is. If it is ONLY possible to acquire something through RL money that is STRONGER than the 'free stuff', only THEN is it P2W.

Just because you can trade the RL currency for in-game currency to acquire cosmetics and some insignificant boost (like the karma gain boost) doesn't make it P2W.

Applying your logic, LoL is also P2W. And you have to be absolutely retarded to actually believe that (regarding LoL).

What they will do to GW2 in the long run remains to be seen, but right now there are no indications that your worries are warranted.

I got a question about this game, is it pay to play? If so, does it mean that I have to pay a monthly subscription in order to keep playing it?

Just like the original GWs, you buy it once and it's free to play from that point on. Additional content will be added through expansions, as you would expect (I don't remember if they said anything about any wow-like additions mid-way, perhaps something seasonal at best, or perhaps more, depends on how well the in-game store does I suppose).


Some good stuff here to clear up some misunderstanding on the monetization and whatnot.
http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/21/guild-wars-2-interview-monetization/#s:guildwars2-16

No, you do. Pay to win means that you can spend real world money to get advantage in the game (this being optional or you being able to spend more for more advantage as you wish), what you said is just the worse case of pay to win.

And it is pay to win in this case because you can have advantage over others in money (which can be used to buy most things in the game), and you are getting that in-game money by spending real world money, therefore having advantage over those who do not pay since you're achieving the same point with reduced effort. Not as bad as cash shops, but that does not mean its not bad.

I do not know what system LoL uses, but if it is similar to this, then yes, I would regard it as pay to win.

I hope so, otherwise its just another "could be a great game" gone to waste. MMO industry is pretty much dead in regards to game arts for me.

oh okay, thanks for the answer. Now I am looking forward to buy the game.

P2W is only applicable when you have to spend money for any hope of competing at the top levels/end-game/whatever. Paying for slightly faster progression or cosmetic upgrades is not P2W. Get your facts straight.

If they don't sell power for RL cash, it's not P2W.

I don't really see the big deal with the gem buyers amassing gold, considering armor is cosmetic. I guess they could buy mods for the armors, but then so can anyone.

That's your definition of Pay-to-Win, and probably is the definition of the majority of people too. Your group believes that the expression Pay-to-Win implies that you can have a chance to win only if you pay, a more restrict and direct definition. However, speaking about semantics, “to” doesn't imply in exclusivity, as a preposition it only implies a direction regardless if that is the only way or not. In this sense, anything that helped the player substantially through his investment of real world currency in comparison to other players can be regarded as Pay-to-Win. That's my definition.

And I use this definition because even if you use your definition of Pay-to-Win, NCSoft's system remains awry to the game. A game is essentially a set of arbitrary rules. These rules exists so that the player achieves the objective dictated by the rules in a specific way, training a set of specific abilities. That's the concept of gaming skills. Being the very essence of a game, if the player denies or bend these rules at will it will be defying the game itself.

From this point, it is kinda obvious a game should not give advantage to its players, be it increased power/speed or reduced effort, based on the player's monetary investment on the game. Money is not a skill, it's a resource. The skills required to earn money in the real world are not analogous to the skills required to be efficient in the game's domain and so money cannot act as conversion tool.

This is something I find truly hypocrite on the gamers part. If a referee gives any sort of advantage to a soccer player because the player paid money to the referee it is considered wrongful and immoral as money has nothing to do with the skills required to play soccer. It's just bribery. The gamers however most of the the time just don't mind at all when a company said it's fine to pay more to have more advantages despite money having nothing to do with the skills required to play the game (as if every game was a betting game like poker or something). It is just completely out of reason to games themselves.

The supposed good purpose of this particular rule (pay more sweat less) is to even the time availability difference between the players. Not only this is a stupid way to even these differences as the casuals who don't have or aren't willing to invest money on the game cannot benefit from this mechanic, as there is no way to tell when a player is investing his money because he doesn't have time to play the game competitively or simply because he wants to exploit this mechanic, there is no way to prevent this rule from defying the game.

If you ask me, the only purpose of this mechanic in GW2 is for the game be able to tackle the WoW Community so they can play both games at the same time and thus relieving Arena.net from competing directly with Blizzard for the player base. It is just a coward move. To me, it sacrifices too much of its game quality for little gain. It is just a bad mechanic. The game would certainly be better without it.

Unfortunately for me this is not the way the community sees this issue, for them gaming is just joyful play and nothing else so anything which can make the game more “joyful” to them is alright regardless if that defies the very own essence of games. In this view the game itself doesn't have an essence, the principle is on the player as if the essence of a book was upon the reader, and so the game should be constructed to only please the gamers wishes regardless of what they are.

As someone who regards games an higher art medium, its just saddening. That's why I regard it as P2W and why I'll abstain from this game as I have done to many others.

tl;dr: GW2 is not the kind of game I'm searching, it is just another senseless fantasy action experience for the sake of being a senseless fantasy action experience. I guess we have too many of these already.

I'm not trying to convert you to the game.
But your 'interpretation' of P2W is immensely flawed. To the point where you're assigning it an entirely different meaning.

In this particular case, the cash shop does not affect the balance in any way (as far as we know anyway).
And why do you think it's bad for someone with less time to pay to level quicker? They'll get to end-game (which, according to devs, shouldn't really exist in GW2 per se), while missing out content in the middle. The 'free' player will get more lore enjoyment, while getting to the same goal. In no way are they less equal because of this.

Besides, they've stated that they designed and balanced the game with the cash shop being certain already, not an afterthought. So the 'rules' were made in a way that there is no dis-balance between paying and not-paying.

Your soccer analogy makes absolutely no sense. Makes it seem like you have some sort of agenda.

Also, how is the cash shop meant to help compete with Blizzard (WoW)? GW2 is primarily a PvP game. And you can get into that from lv1 (and get the set PvP items, which are equal to all). Only in WvWvW does your 'acquired' stuff play any role, and even then, they won't (afaik) sell stuff that is better, just cosmetic.


Having read everything you said, it appears you would indeed call League of Legends a P2W game. I'm sorry, but that is absolutely retarded. Anyone with a semblance of a brain can see that you're wrong (the iffiest thing in LoL is probably buying rune pages, and even that would be stretching it).

You're free to not like something. It's perfectly reasonable, but please don't go around throwing P2W insults (and it is an insult for a game), simply because you're attributing the term a different meaning.

I didn't say you were, I'm explaining my reasons.

My interpretation of Pay-to-Win is not immensely flawed. The word itself doesn't imply in exclusivity, my definition still remains inside the possible definition (proof of concept) of the word, it is just out of the community's common sense, but that isn't saying it is wrong in itself. The whole point of pay to win is paying to acquire an advantage and this advantage makes winning easier (why else do you think buying equipment is called pay to win? Because you are buying advantage, this is the principle). This advantage came not from the players personal abilities inside the game rules but a real world resource unrelated to the abilities exercised in the game and that's why it is liable of criticism. What the community seems to perceive as pay to win is not the exactly the elements but the scale, not if a player is acquiring advantage but how much is it gaining, if its enough to “guarantee” a win with little effort. I perceive the word by the elements, acquiring an substantial advantage through real word resource.

Also, the community seems to think advantage can only happen in power comparison, increased speed or reduced effort are not perceived as advantage, which frankly is retarded. If speed or reduced effort are not an advantage then NCSoft could pretty much sell insta end-game (whatever the hell that will be) through the store as it is “only making things faster, the power balance remains the same”. I'm sure most people would be against such idea, the “loss of mid level lore experience” is too subjective and not enough to function as a trade-off, which brings to the point again that people perceive such advantages as scale not elements.

A game fine-tune is the set of rules to create a difficulty level inside the game. This difficulty level contributes to the overall quality of the game as a game that is too easy or too hard will prove itself boring overtime and it is the difficulty level distributed equally that will create the sense of skill level between the players. If everyone starts on the same grounds and work their through the top under the set of rules it will be their skills inside the game that will differentiate them, mostly. If you reduce the effort or increase speed you will change the difficulty level for that particular player inside the game, and since we're talking about paying for such prospects, it is the same as paying the game to change it to easy mode, a resource not related to the skills exercised when playing the game. The fact that a player can achieve the same status as other with reduced effort because he invested more money on the game creates an underlying sense of alienation as it devalues other player's efforts with no reasonable grounds (as real world money is not an skill). It's like comparing the time required to achieve point B from A of a player who played a game on easy to a player who played it on hard, the difference of difficulty level between the two instances obviously separates them from such comparison, no one with sound mind would do it. In GW2 however there is no such separation, all players co-exist as if the grounds of their game proficiency were equal, when they are in fact not. It ignores the rules and difficulty aspect (the effort necessary to overcome the obstacles imposed by the rules) out of a resource not related to the skills exercised in the game, it just sounds completely dull to game design. Seriously, I did no say this on my previous posts because it seems completely obvious, its retarded to not notice how the rules will shape a game.

What kind of agenda I would have criticizing a video game? The soccer analogy is what it is, an analogy. Soccer is a game where the rules will dictate a set of skills necessary to play and “win” the game, these skills in soccer are mainly physical skills and so, as money doesn't have anything to do with the skills necessary to play soccer, to give advantage to a player based on its money invested doesn't make any sense at all. Video Games are also games where the rules dictate a set of skills necessary to play and “win” the game, these skills in video games are mostly cognitive and reflexive skills and so, as money to doesn't really have any direct connection with these skills, to give advantage to a player based on its money invested also doesn't make any sense at all. Is that so hard to understand? Even if the “game modules” are different they are still the same thing, games, and exist on the same principles, the social aspects regarding games is no excuse to invert their essences. And as I said this mechanic in particular does little to really solve the casual issue.

Also, I'm not complaining about the items sold directly through the store, I don't really know what exactly these items will be, I'm complaining about the fact that a player can easily acquire in-game currency by selling his Cash currency to other players officially, and thus just making an longer and prettier path for gold buying, all that supported by the company. And the way this function helps them to not compete head to head to WoW is that players who didn't have time to commit for both games can do now by means of gems (as it is explained that there are “time-saving items on the store” and you can acquire in-game currency with the gems, saving a lot of farming) and so they don't need to compete to earn the player base, a player can competitively play both of them (if he has enough money to spend on GW2 that is).

I know they “designed the game with the cash shop in mind” but that is not to say they will succeed in creating fair grounds, selling substantial advantage is itself lack of fair ground. I find this ridiculous, even in their PC speech about the store they contradict themselves. In one sentence they say:



And then on the next sentence:



What the hell... if you're selling time-saving items how this would not be an advantage over people who spend time? Because both got to the same point? Pfftt, this notion completely disregards difficulty level (effort necessary) inside a game system, something directly related to the set of arbitrary rules. It will still be alienating.

I will still call it P2W because that's still inside the proof of concept for the word. To pay to acquire advantages (not just power buying, but reduced effort as a whole, that is what the word advantage implies: that something is easier from a certain position) is just bad for gaming system. Even if you call it a different name like don't know, Pay to Sweat Less just to be more specific (although that is exactly the modus operandi of P2W), it is still defying the essence of a game and as liable of criticism. To me, the game would be a hell lot better if these kind of transactions didn't exist.

Tl;dr: to give any kind of advantage through real world money is not cool

I'm gonna go around random point in no particular order.

How is saving time an in-game advantage? In case of GW2, your aim is to PvP, where you don't get different gear, everyone has a preset selection. When you go into structured PvP, you are set to max level and get this gear. When you go back, these are removed and you get your 'levelling' stuff back.

Saving time is not an in-game advantage, thus it is not P2W.

What you are talking about is having a micro-transaction model in general (this is more neutral and can go either way), whereas P2W is a direct insult. Your definition of it is just plain wrong if you include time-saving into it.

The soccer analogy blows, because it's incomparable. Soccer is purely physical game which never even had the concept of 'boosts' in it. Your analogy would make sense if you were talking about everyone buying personalized uniforms, but that would fuck up spectating.
The entire sport relies purely on your body, unlike computer games.

Here's a better analogy. Let's assume we both need to go from A to B. You take the bus, I walk. Why should you have the advantage of getting there faster and easier, when I have to walk? Unfair, right?

Why should you have a competitive edge on me in a game just because you spent more money on your rig, and I didn't, so I get some stutters causing me to lose?


Reading your post, I can't shake the feeling that your P2W 'interpretation' stems from you disliking that somebody can afford to spend money on a game for an absolutely insignificant gain, and you can't.

What does it matter to you if the guy levels faster? In the case of GW2 it isn't even important, since you get scaled to the content anyway. In the case of LoL, buying an XP boost means you get to the 30-only ranked level faster, which is in no way an advantage.

Those quotes you mentioned, they do not contradict each other in any way.
If it's not something more powerful that can't be achieved by spending time (i.e. grinding), it's not an advantage.


TL;DR. to give any kind of advantage through real world money is not cool. Saving time in a game is not an advantage. Quite the opposite. If you spend longer on levelling, you're exposed to the mechanics more, and have a better understanding = more skilled, especially in PvP.

Geeze, there's more text here than the first 10 pages of the bible.

Last BWE starts on friday. Anyone else going to be playing over the weekend?

I got a beta key for the upcoming BWE, got the game preloaded already.

Really want to try it out but don't know how much time I'll have for it... swamped with school work. I'll try to squeeze in at least an hour or two for sure though :)

Never played GW, but I have high expectations for this game.

I'll be playing, I was going to wait until release, but my friend convinced me to pre-order it.

Guardian looks real sweet.

The only way for me to try this game for the first time is during beta and I have to pre-order the fucker. Don't wanna spend 50 bucks... yet.

Sooooooon.... my fingers are itching to play.

GW1 player too. Don't got the money on me for 2 unless a miracle happens.

I just logged on today for the beta, and guess what...Guild Wars 2 doesn't seem to like my 2500k clocked at 4.5GHz. I had to set it back to stock just so it could stop giving me error messages

I fought a giant crab underwater today.

My plant lady